GW Lightning Arc Starshine 5 A DISTANT PLACE
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Past and future interwoven, decisions that can't wait – Zechs in a tight spot, Lucrezia at war with herself, and Endless Waltz on the horizon.
1. Chapter 1 of 2

**GW Lightning Arc – SIDESTORIES – A Distant Place**

Fandom: GW AC  
Characters: Zechs and Lucrezia  
Warnings: References to male-male affection.  
Summary: Past and future interwoven, decisions that can't wait – Zechs in a tight spot, Lucrezia at war with herself.

xxx

He had given her the same room as always, the one that had been Treize's father's. It was the one that perhaps, she thought, held the fewest memories. She slung her backpack onto the field cot that had replaced the large bed. From the two windows she had a sweeping view of the driveway that led to the main entrance of the estate, and in the distance she could make out the shape of the gate and the shard of gundamium that marked the end of the road from the church the Khushrenadas had patronised. Lucrezia had found it difficult to figure out whether they had been believers. More likely, she thought, that it had been the Useful, the Right Thing to do.

She showered in the redecorated bathroom – as clean and white as the rest of the house now – and changed into her exercise uniform. When she stepped into the drawing room, Zechs was standing by the open French doors, a book in his hands. He looked tidy in a tan jumper and jeans, his hair damp from washing and falling in heavy tangles down to his shoulders. The room had been furnished with a couch and a low table, a few candles on the mantel of the fireplace, and a modern chandelier. A few books and a paint-stained ghetto-blaster on the floor, the pale wood covered in a thick woven rug to keep the chill of winter from seeping in.

"Neat job," she said, folding her arms as she gazed across to Zechs.

He gave her a weak smile. "Took me long enough." To peel away layers of history, centuries old, skin after skin coming away in flakes and patches, some needed scraping off, others just fell away. To bring himself to do it.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"Fine?"

He closed the book. "The system's grown into me, I can't rip it out. I'll never be... normal again. Neither will those- the other four." He didn't tell her that it became harder to live with the system in his mind as time wore on. The men who might have been able to help were his enemies, even though the new ruling powers weren't above using their scientific expertise. He would not.

She crossed the room and looked out into the white day. It was snowing, in soft, thick flakes, slow and relentless. The silence was overwhelming. The place was always silent, she thought, like a grave.

"Thanks for letting me come here," she said.

"Why not?"

Heat rose into her cheeks. "I think I should apologise," she said, turning her head to look at him. Meeting his gaze, clear, curious. Distant. It reminded her...

"There is no need," he said.

_Need_, not _reason_. She was not sure whether he had chosen his words or whether it didn't matter to him either way. Cautiously she laid her hand on his arm. "How long since anyone's touched you?"

She could see his effort not to shrink back but he did not shake her off. "Since I've been out of hospital, I suppose." He broke away to look out over the snowy meadows. "It's not you. You're beautiful, you're..." He shook his head in frustration.

"Not quite what you want," she finished. "I know that." A small break, then she leaned in to kiss him. "Don't make me beg."

xxx

Zechs pulled the door to Treize's room shut in passing. His own place was furnished with a large leather armchair and a bed. It was cold, the window wide open. He closed it and dragged the curtains shut before he started undressing. Lucrezia shed her clothes and moulded against him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her cheek against his shoulderblade, she hugged him firmly.

"I don't care what happens. No strings, no bother."

He couldn't help asking, "And the Frenchman?"

Lucrezia laughed. "I never went to the Bolshoy. I gave him the ticket. He said it was boring."

Zechs huffed.

"He's accepted a posting to the outer colonies," she went on, releasing him to crawl under the thick, sheet-encased blanket. "I guess that's it. I don't think I'll hear from him again."

Zechs sat down on the edge of the mattress and tugged his jeans off, then paused, hands between his knees. "Lucrezia..."

"Aren't you freezing?" Her voice was shivering with cold. "The room isn't heated, is it?"

"Lucrezia, it's not... I mean..."

"Your lips are blue." She lifted a corner of the blanket. "It's like being in winter camp. Slip in already."

He let himself drop back and firmly closed his eyes. She propped herself up on her elbow and glanced down at him, a smile on her lips as she let her other hand wander. A moment later, he gasped.

"See?" she murmured smokily, leaning down to kiss him.

He tried to concentrate on her touch.

Sometime later, he groaned in frustration. "Perhaps... if you..."

She turned onto her side and reached behind to pull him against her back. "This better?"

xxx

She woke from the thumping beat of the stereo, shaking through the old walls of the house and echoing down the empty corridors. Grey morning light fingered through a gap in the curtains. For a few heartbeats, Lucrezia stared at the path it painted on the whitewashed ceiling and let the images of the past night bloom and fade in her mind, a wistful smile curving her lips. It had been more of an effort than she'd imagined, and it had left a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. He had apologised when they were through. Said something about a different mindset, him not being used to this. She didn't ask what 'this' meant. Now she was unsure how to face him.

She got up and went through her personal hygiene, focusing on the routine it entailed instead of worrying. Refreshed, dressed in her exercise uniform because she hadn't bothered packing civilian clothes, she stepped into the hallway. The music kept going, uninterrupted by news or small-talk, and she guessed that it wasn't a radio programme. She walked past Treize's room towards the stairs, but then she paused, her hand on the bannister. A moment of hesitation, a twinge of unease, before she turned back.

The door was unlocked. The room was empty. Almost disappointed, she made to leave, but then her glance fell on something half-hidden by the open door. Stepping in, she crouched to take a closer look. A model, dozens of small metal parts, screws, wires, silver-grey panels. A handful of parts sorted into neat little heaps. She reached out to touch-

"Here you are." Zechs deep voice startled her. He was barefoot in spite of the cold, and she hadn't heard him approach.

Blushing deeply, she got up. "I didn't mean to pry."

He shrugged. He was in jeans and a grey tee, the same stuff he'd worn on Mars when he wasn't in Preventer gear and that had been washed so often the fabric was getting threadbare. "It's kids' stuff anyway. What do you think?"

She managed a smile, her cheeks still burning. "I think building the fully wired model of a fighter jet isn't exactly for kids, even if it's an old type."

He bent to pick up the half-finished plane and turned it in his hands, his gaze focused on the fine details. "It's only the basic frame. It's going to be quite large. A dust trap." He set it down again, then glanced at her. "Breakfast's ready."

xxx

He turned off the music in the drawing room and sat down in a corner of the couch. A few letters lay open on the low table, next to a tray with a flask of coffee and a plate with toast and butter, two mugs and a butter knife.

"I haven't got much else in the house. The woman who shops in the village quit yesterday."

"Oh." Lucrezia joined him, keeping a small space between them. "Why?"

He smoothed one of the letters out on his thigh, poured coffee into both mugs and took one. "Her grandmother fell ill." He read, then pulled a pencil from his pocket and made notes on the paper before putting it to one side.

"Was it sudden? And are you going to hire someone else instead?"

"Not likely. It's quite convenient. Call it natural reduction."

"Do you think that's true?"

"The story?" About to take the next document, he paused, considering. "Probably not. There's a lot of bullshit around. Rumours." A break, then, "About you, too. They say I should move on, or marry you, and then you'd straighten me out."

She shifted uncomfortably. "What are you going to do about it?"

He shook his head, a small, irritated gesture. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you want to keep this place, you can't run it all by yourself," she said, feeling her patience wearing thin at last. "I don't mean you should marry me or anyone, but you need some staff."

"That's my business." His words were dry, cool and smooth as glass, and he didn't bother softening them.

Lucrezia leaned back into her corner of the couch and drank her coffee. Zechs carried on with his work. For a while, there was only the rustling of paper and the scratching of the pencil.

"Where did you get the model from?" she broke the silence when he put the last paper on the finished stack.

He met her gaze, a small smile on his lips. "Found it when I cleared out the attic. It was a present for Treize from his uncle. He had turned thirteen, there was talk about his career, plans... He tried to put the thing together but he lost patience, so I finished it while he was out with the old man on a tour of the estate. I thought he'd have a fit, but he seemed to like it. Maybe he felt comfortable about it – him making all the plans, me doing the technical stuff. That's how it always was. No competition, at least not there."

"You said you finished it?"

"He dismantled it again, perhaps to see whether he could build it by himself. He didn't tell me that, but when he started his first tour of duty, his mother cleared his room out – all the kiddie stuff, books, toys, games. That's when I found the box. Some of the bits are broken where he pulled them off the frame. One of the turbines needs replacing, and I haven't got a spare." He took the papers. "Invoices, contracts, one of the tenants late with the rent. I don't know, I'm not sure I'm cut out for this."

"How do they address you here?"

"What?"

"I found out who you were after you'd gone and the whole thing blew up in our faces."

"Ah, that. Behind my back-" He thought a moment, then shook his head. "Let's say, 'His Grace's cousin' is the most factual version. When they talk to me, it's Your Grace."

"They don't know?"

"Who I am? Or that Treize and I screwed? Perhaps they do. It doesn't matter." He set the mug down. "Royal Highness would sound odd anyway. You got any plans?"

She smiled. "Unwind. Be lazy. Sweat in the steambath."

He got up. "Sounds good. I have a long-distance call scheduled with the Khushrenadas' lawyers and then with my own. Someone's applied for a licence to prospect for gold in the upper reaches of the river. It's bullshit, there's no gold or the Khushrenadas would have known. I think it's an excuse to nose around. There's also a planning application for a hunting lodge which I don't need here, so I'm going to object, personally and financially. Make yourself at home and don't wait for me with anything."

Lucrezia rose too and caught him before he could leave the room. "About last night-"

For a heartbeat, they looked at each other, then he squeezed her hand. "I think you deserve better."

xxx

It seemed incongruous that there should be a telephone in the house, but she could hear the din of voices from the loudspeaker, tinny and hollow, interwoven with Zechs' deep voice, rebounding from the plain walls of the library. It didn't sound friendly. He had left the door to the large room open, and Lucrezia could see him pace, an expression of angry concentration on his face, as she crossed the vestibule to go outside.

She spent the day lazing about, wandering around in the snowy grounds and then exploring the empty house, finding nothing but deep, white silence everywhere. The sun showed for a short time around midday, and dusk came early. Restored and at ease again, Lucrezia went to talk to the woman who had come from the village to cook the evening meal and then made a fire in the drawing room. It was a matter of trying a few words she'd snapped up in Russian and using hands and grimaces. Soon they were laughing while sorting through the supplies of food and making a list of things to buy.

Later, she found Zechs in the empty library, behind a large table covered with papers. He was brooding over a detailed, large-scale map. When Lucrezia sat down on a chair opposite him, he folded the map over and got up. "Did you have a good day?"

"And you?"

He groped for his cigarettes and lit up. His hands were trembling a little, and she thought that he hadn't touched any hard drink since she'd arrived. Regarding her through the curls of smoke, his eyes were cool. "Why did you come here?"

Lucrezia bit her lip. She had expected the question a long time ago. It still hit her like a brick. "Well, if you want to put it like that – Une sends you her regards. And this." She pulled a small plastic wallet from her pocket and laid it onto the table.

He picked it up and turned in his hands. "A holocube? I don't have the equipment here to extract the files. She knows that."

"Yes."

He huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils. "What does she think I'm going to do, jump? Like a dog after a bone?"

"It has the transcripts of Treize's hearing with the Foundation men. Other things, too – photographs, surveillance tapes, news footage that never made it into the media, interrogation footage of the men they hoped would break and shoot him in the back. There's more, back at the Preventers archives."

His nails whitened as he clutched the wallet. "It won't change anything."

"Why do you have to be so damn stubborn? When did you last follow the news?"

"I'm trying not to. That's why I wanted to be here. Alone." He raked his hand through his hair, ash falling onto the pale strands. "I just need time."

"Well, then take your time, it's up to you. But you might want to look at this." She snatched the box and cracked it open. A picture fell out, quite obviously taken from a distance with a telescopic lens. It was a good-quality surveillance photograph of a young woman. Flanked by two bulky men in grey fatigues, she looked small and slight in a severe trouser suit and a military-style beret. "Have you heard of the Barton Foundation?"

Zechs stared at the picture without moving. "L3. They've been stirring unrest up there for years." His tone was bland, calm, as if he was reading out a report about something that had nothing to do with him. "Treize's first tour of duty as a commanding officer... it was to put down a so-called rebellion. He later said it was civilian unrest, like in Cinq. He was wounded in action, disappeared for a year. He was still oozing shrapnel when he got back. He was promoted for exemplary conduct and the success of his mission."

"Sure, but it never went away. Dekim Barton's rallied his forces, and now they plan to overthrow the Earth Sphere government and replace the president with his puppet. You know what that means for your sister as the current Vice Foreign Minister."

"I'm tired of all this," he said, and she could hear it seep into his voice.

Suppressing a twinge of pain, she said, "Who isn't? I'm here because it's too much for Une, too much for anyone alone. Relena has worked herself stupid but she wants you close because she is concerned. The rest of us, we need you because of your skills."

"Because of what I am," he said, looking up at last. "I don't blame anyone. I just can't do it. I can't control this thing, and Relena... she doesn't know what she's wishing for."

"Give her some credit." Lucrezia got up, the chair scraping over the wooden floor. "You're wasted here. You're wasting your skills. You have no right to do this. Those people, they want to undo all that happened."

"Perhaps they're right?" Zechs glanced up. "Why should they not decide for themselves what happens on L3? Isn't Winner's business behind this, competing for resource satellites and trying to keep the monopoly on all supplies and trading posts? Wasn't Winner in bed with the Foundation too? L3 is a scrapheap but it's one of the most expensive places to live. As far as I remember, all they wanted back then was fair trading, affordable food, medical supplies and free transportation routes. They bid for independence only after Earth said no."

"You have leave to go and see for yourself," Lucrezia countered, and he realised he'd walked straight into a carefully rehearsed argument.

"I guess you have tickets booked?"

"On a supply shuttle. You also have a passport, a licenced civilian gun, and a reporter's pass under an alias."

"Jesus..." He snatched the map and walked out of the room, slamming the door.

xxx

Her satellite phone rang when her jeep approached the airstrip. She picked the call up.

"How old is she?" Zechs' voice, rough through the transmission, was dark and distant.

"The girl?"

"Don't play games with me. Please."

She told him.

"It's true then?" His tone was flat, giving nothing away.

"We're not sure. Barton claims she's his granddaughter."

A long silence followed, and Lucrezia checked the display to see whether the call had been cut off, but then Zechs came back on.

"She has his face." And there, at last, was the ripping agony he had tried to keep back.

Lucrezia bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed, but she had to ask, not only to follow her orders.

"I need to sort a few things," he said, exhaustion sloshing into his voice. "Tell Une I'll be quick."

xxx

End Part 1 of 2.


	2. Chapter 2 of 2

**GW Lightning Arc – SIDESTORIES – A Distant Place Chapter 2**

Fandom: GW AC  
Characters: Zechs  
Warnings: References to male-male affection.  
Summary: Endless Waltz summarised, Zechs having to decide how to deal with the future. In my story, MM is 15, which simply seemed to make more sense.

KhalaniK and Karina, thank you for your encouraging reviews! I hope you'll keep writing too!

xxx

It seemed all very complicated but Une's briefing was cool and clear, delivered with calm detachment. Relena had gone on a diplomatic mission to L3 to boost the colony's profile. The place was supposed to have been completed, all major building works come to an end, the colonists contentedly working away.

There had been sufficient intelligence to add a note of concern to the report that had been prepared by diplomats posted on L3. There would have been career-conscious wrangling even over this short analysis of the situation on the colony, buried deeply in the twists and turns of bureaucratic jargon. Couched in smooth, cautious terms that to Zechs sounded like shellfire, but it hadn't fitted the political sensitivities. The Earth Sphere government needed to demonstrate peace and goodwill were working and all was well.

He listened in silence as Une talked, guiding him through the most recent Preventer measures to conter the threat of unrest on L3.

"They still managed to blindside us," she said, looking pale and angry. "There aren't many ways that this could have happened."

"Intercepted communications, demotivated staff." He met her gaze, and for a moment they studied each other. "I think I know how that feels."

"I'm not debating that." She laid her hands on the battered wooden desk that held a telecom unit, a computer terminal and a holograph. Her office had not changed – a plain, unassuming room with a large window and off-white walls. Hidden in plain sight, it could have belonged to any of the teaching staff at the Academy.

"Tell me what you think."

"Excuse me?"

"I heard the official version. It's not the same, is it?"

She interlinked her fingers. "There are signs... you know that the Winner corporation owns all rights to X-18999. They've been prospecting up there and pioneered ore-extraction on nearby MO-II. L3's administration claimed rights, backed by the Barton Foundation. The Bartons have business interests and want to expand, clashing with Winner. They were refuted. The legal case has stalled because they couldn't pay their lawyers and couldn't find anyone else with the expertise and will to take on the corporation's legal team."

"Let me guess – they wanted to offer mining rights for trading privileges?"

A small, confirming nod. "There have been strikes, miners' unrest, squabbles between managers and the corporation."

"And now the satellite is crawling with mercenary troops."

Une sat back in her chair. She was pale, her face blank. "Tensions are running high – it's a powder keg and the Barton Foundation is ready to put a spark in. Relena was unreasonable. We spoke via the secure line, and I advised her to postpone the diplomatic mission. She left without notifying us. I sent Yuy, Maxwell and Barton to follow her but I am not sure where they are at present."

"You didn't know?"

"We're all human," Une said, heat rising to her cheeks. "I don't know yet what happened – whether it was deliberate, whether staff at the spaceport were intimidated or if we just made a stupid mistake."

Zechs glanced out of the window over the park at the heart of the Academy complex. It was a grey day, dripping with rain and heavy with clouds. Back home, he thought, it had been snowing. Christmas was close. "Has she been in touch?"

Une's nails whitened. "She called me from the shuttle. She said she wfanted to talk to the L3 administration to see whether negotiations could be resumed. They were about to call a general strike, and from what we know the corporation troops won't wait – they're ready to jump space and crush the strike and the colony." She drew a heavy breath. "You might not know but the gundams had been sent for destruction. They've been recalled."

"How about giving the colonists what they're after?" he challenged quietly, echoing a question from the past.

A long silence filled the space between him and Une. She rose and went to look out of the window, standing sideways – always the cautious soldier, Zechs thought – and apparently detached.

"Let me speculate a little," she said at last, without turning. "We haven't got enough proof but I think there are funding issues, media and public opinion to consider. Winner is paying for much of the terraforming work on Mars. His corporation has invested in inter-colony transport infrastructure and the latest technology to bridge space quicker and cheaper than we can at the moment. He is providing scholarships to attract the best scientists to the corporation, and there is a lot of research to improve the use of the Interplanetary Transport Network. He has a stake in the Earth defence industry. And perhaps more difficult than anything, he has aligned himself publicly with the pacifist agenda. He's reinvented himself, pushed money into charitable donations, education and public works on the colonies, and his papers and news channels help his corporation to make it all look nice." She linked her hands behind her back, and he saw that she was wearing her sidearm with the security catch snapped back. "On the other hand, we had sight of the colony administration's accounts. Their trade balance is better than they want to make us believe."

"That's the nature of bargaining, isn't it?"

"There is no sign of where the profits went."

"They could have been embezzled for private gain."

"Yes, of course. But nobody with the means to do that got rich fast, where personal assets are concerned."

Zechs leaned back in his chair, settling his hands flat on the table. "What does it have to do with me?"

"Relena has her own mind," Une said. "And she has the support of the more idealistic members of the Earth Sphere government. But you have the skills we need to deal with this situation. I don't believe there will be peaceful solution."

"I've been unwell for some time. I haven't recovered."

"I want you to go and see for yourself." Une returned to her seat, her posture mirroring that of Zechs. "There will be time for talks later." A small pause, then, "What does Operation Meteor mean to you?"

xxx

"They only need to fire the colony's main thrusters on the side facing away from us." Treize pointed the tip of his pencil at various points on the complicated technical schema that rotated in the faint glow of the holographic projector. Hovering just above the thick glass table of his staff room, the mini-colony cast a ghostly shine on his and Zechs' faces. "We wouldn't even notice because we cannot observe that side. Our sources led me to believe that in spite of attempts at rationing there is enough fuel to nudge it away from its Lagrange Point into the gravitational field of Earth."

Zechs chewed his lip. Treize looked through the transparent model at him. "Well?"

"I don't know."

"What does that mean?"

Zechs glanced up. "Why would they want to do that? Bomb Earth with an entire colony? They'd kill a lot of their own people, right?"

"The idea of sacrifice," Treize lectured, his voice clear and sharp. "Of having nothing to lose. Give people something to cling to, and they'll think twice."

"Then why not do that? I read the briefing. They sound desperate. Isn't it reasonable what they're after?"

Treize switched the projector off. For a moment, Zechs couldn't see in the sudden darkness before the office brightened again. In the pallid glow of the overhead striplights, Treize's face looked almost white and surprisingly haggard.

"Yes," he said. "It is."

xxx

There was no time to travel to the colony. The next hours were a blur of increasingly panicked newscasts, a flood of transmissions arriving via the secure Preventer network. And then everything seemed to happen at once. Skirmishes on the colony and its satellites. Barton's volunteers getting ready to fight – no nervy crowd but well-trained, educated soldiers, fired by ideals and the unshakeable belief that justice was on their side.

Zero in his mind, Zechs went through a stand-off with Dekim Barton, coolly recalculating his options when he realised after blowing up the resource satellite that Barton's Serpent MS were on their way to Earth. A shower of new model mobile suits, spewed by MO-III from its earth-near orbit, taking everyone by surprise.

While he was returning to Earth, Une briefed him on the Preventer pilots – Trowa Barton killing his alter ego, Chang Wufei howling abuse at his colleagues, his mind caught in an eternal loop, his last confrontation with Treize. She said that Yuy was keeping Chang in check and that there was no trace of Winner. She mentioned that Noin was on her way in, and that the incoming Serpents were lighting the sky up like fireworks. Her voice was calm and collected until she said, "He should not have died, not for this. What a terrible, terrible waste."

There weren't many choices left.

In the end, Zechs thought as he settled in the pilot's seat of Tallgeese III, it should have been predictable. All the boardroom wrangling, the unrest on X-18999, the protests on L3 and the first wave of mobile suits heading towards Earth – a smokescreen to disguise the real thing. It all boiled down to one thing – war.

He listened to the airlock closing, the hissing of the cockpit seals, and watched the control lights on the console blinking to life. Not much had been changed in reconstructing the giant suit, and when the pale green image of Tallgeese's neural network started to glow on the large central screen, he leaned back and drew a slow, deep breath.

He felt the suit's thrusters fire up; the ground crew's chatter died away as the countdown started, and then he gasped as he was weighed down by the g-force of the takeoff. He could feel his hands sweat, his fingertips tingle. Even through the filters of his breathing apparatus, the tough plastic cover of the seat smelled familiar in a sickening way. Images drifted through his mind – the silent bloom of the explosion that sprayed Treize's suit into space, the blinding agony of his dying moments, relayed with unfeeling clarity by Zero's neural streams. The bliss of release and the oblivion of a kiss. The brilliance of a smile and the relentless drive, the glow of hope drowning in rivers of blood...

Zechs felt the surge of the Zero system but this time it was different – instead of resisting, he welcomed it. Slowly, deliberately, he let it soak into every fibre of his body, grow into his mind, his thoughts, take over his reflexes. The dull pressure in his head subsided into an empty, glassy kind of clarity. There was no more room for anything but fight.

xxx

It was over much quicker than he had expected – the rush of the fight, his determination not to kill if he could help it, Noin's backup that felt as solid as it had always done when they had been in the field. For a short time, he came back to life, among the fire and smoke, the violence and fury of the battle. The miserable end of the coup in the presidential palace, with Barton's bullet missing Relenaf and hitting his granddaughter instead.

Zechs did not want to know. He had seen some of the first images of the palace, filmed by a pair of frontline reporters. It had raked up memories he found hard to deal with.

He took leave immediately after delivering Tallgeese back to Une.

xxx

The girl looked smaller than he'd imagined. Her arms, caught in restraints and stuck with a pair of drips for water and medicines, lay thin and pale on the sheets of the hospital bed. Sitting on a chair against the wall, Zechs had nodded off until a flicker of the system in his mind startled him awake.

She was staring at him, her eyes clear and brilliant blue. "I hate you," she whispered.

He folded his arms as if to shield himself. "Yes," he murmured.

She tried to stir but gasped in pain. "I can't feel my legs."

"Would you like me to call a nurse?"

"Screw you. Why are you here?"

Zechs rose to close the door, then went back to his seat. "There are guards outside."

"What do you want? Interrogate me?"

"No."

She relaxed, her gaze drifting to the white ceiling. "What a stupid ending..."

"Wasn't the whole plan stupid?"

She shrugged.

He leaned forward. "Would you like some water?"

"I don't take anything from traitors."

He swallowed hard and sat back, leaning firmly against the cool wall behind him.

"You of all people should have known," she went on, talking in a flat monotone that cut him more than sobs or tears could have. "But you fucked everyone. I learned about you. You left OZ, you left White Fang. My father died because of you. You're a coward."

"It's easy to judge," he said quietly, unable to keep his tone smooth.

"What happened to my grandfather?"

"He is dead."

Her fingers clenched, digging into the white sheets. "What's going to happen to me? Will I get a trial?"

"I believe there will be a closed court hearing. They're likely to be lenient because of your age."

She snorted. "You think I'm an idiot? They don't want me to talk to the press. They don't want us to be heard. Perhaps they're going to lock me away somewhere in an institution, who knows?" She turned her head, her eyes wide and burning as she stared at him unblinkingly. "You know it's true, don't you?"

"I asked for some tests," he said, his voice hoarse. "It wasn't difficult to compare the results with Treize's military records."

A smile spread on her thin face, sad, triumphant and spiteful at once. She watched him, a gaze so familiar, so precociously bright, that for a few agonising moments he felt as if she could see right into his mind.

"Why did you save my sister?" he asked, feeling as if he was grasping for straws.

There was a small pause, before the girl said, "I don't know. I wish I hadn't."

xxx

He had gone back to Mars for some time, escaping the press and those who were busy restyling him as the new hero of the Earth Sphere, the repentant, reformed sinner. The Winner corporation had its own way for restoring order on X-18999, and L3 was crawling with Preventer agents. He listened to the news in the privacy of his room at the Mars Academy until one evening he realised he was crying. Slow, silent, bitter tears.

He went home to the estate. The house, white and still, received him into its calm, empty space. News were a distant echo here, something he could tune out if he wanted peace. Christmas was over, and a new year about to begin.

He told the remaining four staff to take leave until after the celebrations in the village were over. He gave them money, a small premium to top up their wages, and a donation for the church the Khushrenadas had attended. "I'll be there, later," he said, "when I'm ready. I'm tired now, I need some time alone." It was more than he had said in months, but they were forgiving people and seemed relieved he could still speak at all.

When they had left, the stable hand taking the shaggy little horse and the sledge, the women riding the motor sledge, the house lapsed into total silence. Outside, snow piled up on the windowsills and covered the meadows, the forest, as far as he could see. He wandered through the cold, still corridors and opened doors to let the white light of the winter day in.

He moved his bed and settled in Treize's room where he turned on the old record player he had kept from the things that had been in the library. The ancient vinyl disc began to spin, slightly scratchy, and a heartbeat later the gentle, melancholy melody of a Russian folk tune rose into the stillness.

xxx

Warm lips touching his ear, a damp, breathy kiss, a quiet laugh. "Ay, Miliusha moy... why so gloomy? I'm yours. For eternity and beyond."

"You're good at grand words. I can't tell anymore when you're lying to me."

"Then let me show you exactly what I mean..."

xxx

Zechs closed his eyes and lay still, letting his memories take him.

xxx

THE END


End file.
